


Somewhere between life and death

by dandelionnie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Angst, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Worldbuilding, a weird kind of Enemies to Lovers, versatile!kaisoo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 00:56:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20751671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionnie/pseuds/dandelionnie
Summary: In the war for survival, people have to make difficult decisions. For KyungSoo it was leaving his lover behind while running away with his friends. Now, six years later, he has to face someone he once knew but now seems like a complete stranger to him."Do you hate me that much?" he asked. The silence was his answer.





	Somewhere between life and death

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I didn't want to publish anything until I had at least 10 chapters of "Promise me love", but I've been working on this for a few days and I have already written four chapters so I think I can keep up with both stories. 
> 
> I have never tried to write something about an apocalyptic world so I don't know where this will head. I hope you like it and sorry for the possible grammar mistakes I have made.
> 
> Oh, and please pay attention to the dates so you won't be confused when you read.

** _May, 2016._ **

Do KyungSoo shocked his head, trying to focus a little bit and try to concentrate his eyes and mind in something. There was a disturbing beep in his ears because of the explosion and the smoke around was fucking annoying. With a groan, he seated and crawled to where Byun BaekHyun was, still unconscious.

“Ey, Baek.” The man moved and opened his eyes slowly, letting out a cry of pain a second later.

“Hurts…” he complained.

KyungSoo looked down to the right leg of BaekHyun and shocked his head; some crystal fragments had incrusted into his skin after the explosion so moving will be a difficult task. He moved closer, tearing up the already broken sleeve of his shirt and trying to stop the blood coming down the wound.

“Do you think you can walk?” he asked.

BaekHyun seated slowly and twisted a little bit his injured leg, he let out a pained groan but nodded. Using KyungSoo as his support, BaekHyun got up and started moving with the other man holding him by the waist. They walked away from the place where the grenade had exploded and smiling when they heard the voices of their other friends. Walking downstairs, BaekHyun and KyungSoo saw JongDae and JunMyeon at the final steps.

The boys didn’t have time to greet each other because a voice sounded through the building, calling for them.

“Boys!” It was SooYoung. She was peeking his head out behind the double doors of a room near them. “Come here! We found a save place!”

“We have to search for the others!” JongDae replied as he shook his head. The anxiety of losing the others was crawling inside him.

They were a big group of nine people that had somehow stay together when the epidemic took place years ago and the world became a battlefield. The fact that they were separated when the explosion happened and now they were only six could only mean one thing. Something that none of them wanted to say out loud.

“We should go now!” JooHyun said, behind SooYoung. “The explosion was too big, it probably has turned the attention of everyone near us here. We have to move.”

“But the others…” KyungSoo said; he felt a pang on his chest at the thought of leaving the other behind.

“We have to leave…” JunMyeon murmured. “If we don’t do it, we’ll become easy prey for the other groups.”

They exchanged a look with the others, still doubting if they should leave, but some shots near them and a small explosion put them on alert and started moving. JongDae carried BaekHyun on his back as JunMyeon and KyungSoo made sure that no one saw them.

The boys moved to the placer where the girls were and followed them to an exterior zone. They walked out of the building and hid behind burned cars and the rest of the buildings that had fallen apart with other explosions. When they were in a safe zone, far away from the other building, they heard screams, more shots and then a big explosion.

All of them held their breaths and couldn’t take their eyes away from the building as the foundations crumbled up with the last explosions and the building started falling.

* * *

** _September, 2022._ **

“KyungSoo!”

The man opened up his eyes, completely alerted when he heard the scream.

“What?! What happened?!” he questions, trying to focus on BaekHyun’s face.

Byun took a seat at the end of his bed; his black hair fell on his forehead and almost covering his tired eyes. He seemed completely worn out and KyungSoo could only ask himself how much time did the man had slept the past few days.

“You were having a nightmare,” he finally explained. “That’s why I wake you up.”

“Oh…”

KyungSoo took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He seated down the mattress and exhaled slowly, trying to relax and pushing away the dark thoughts and the bad memories that flooded his mind after the nightmare.

“Is about that day, isn’t it?” BaekHyun asked.

“They are always about that day,” he replied with a low, sad tone.

“I know…” He said with a strange voice. “You should prepare. YunHo said that today we were traveling to some infected zones.”

BaekHyun didn’t say anything else, knowing that there were no words that could decrease the bad feeling the other man had. After a few minutes in complete silence, he got up and walked out of the room, leaving KyungSoo alone with his thoughts. When the door was closed, Do open up his eyes and searched with the eyes for the clock, needing to know what time it was: just six in the morning. His night guard had ended at three and a half, and with the time he had lost into going to bed he had probably slept for only two hours.

He got up with a sigh and started changing his clothes to start a new day in the camp. White shirt, dark jeans, black belt, and a camo bomber. Those were his clothes. He thought about taking a hat to cover up his messy brown hair but he decided not to. The door of his room opened up when he was adjusting the cordons of his military boots, and Oh SeHun entered without being invited.

“Hyung, are you ready? We part in five minutes.”

KyungSoo frowned at the evident ‘Go faster’ that was implied in the younger man’s words. With a groan, he got up of the bed and walked out of the bedroom, being followed closely by SeHun. His steps were slow, his body still trying to connect again after his little sleep time. His mind went back to the start of everything, to the moment the world went down to a point of no return.

Nine years ago, a strange illness appeared in Europe and extended unstoppable in the world. At first, people didn’t take seriously the disease and thought that they just needed to be more careful, wearing masks permanently until the outbreak was under control.

How wrong they had been.

The M virus, as the press had called it, was a product made by a pharmaceutical company that had been looking for a cure to another infection that they had created. But contrary to what they expected, the virus worked as an enhancer for the bacteria and everything was out of control in a blink of an eye. When the first infected died, many more followed.

And when the dead returned to life, destroying everything that was on his way, people did the only thing they could: go mad.

The war is not just against the not-dead but also between the people that we're alive and healthy. Everything had turned into a battlefield to survive and they had to wait for almost eight years for the virus to disappear. People lowered their weapons –in a metaphoric way—and tried to rebuild what they thought was lost. It was thanks to that, that KyungSoo and his group found Antares, a city founded in an old prison that had been completely freed of dead-man after months of fights.

He lived in the C Block since the beginning and used to work in a little farm that had been built in the middle of Antares. Thankfully for the world, most animals seemed to be immunes to the illness and the ones who died because it never came back to life. It was there, in Antares, where KyungSoo had let himself think that a better future was still possible.

“Hyung,” SeHun called him, taking him out of his thoughts and bringing him back to present. The younger man had a walkie-talkie on his hand to communicate with the others. “Change of plans, it seems like someone located a small group of people in the old zone of Nowon-gu. I will go there with BaekHyun-Hyung and the others.” KyungSoo nodded, waiting for his assignation. “YeRim is waiting for you in the East Gate.”

“Okay, thanks,” he said.

SeHun gave him a little nod, his gesture to say goodbye, and walked away to the exit in the north. KyungSoo continued his way thought the metallic hallway until he reached the end, walking downstairs and waving to everyone he found on his way. He closed his eyes, lifting his hand to his face when he walked out of the building and the sunlight hit him.

He started walking through Antares, watching some kids already playing in the makeshift school that was in A Block, other people getting ready for another day of work in the farms and others that returned to their homes after the night shift. KyungSoo still couldn’t believe how the society had crumbled down so hard to an unimaginable point and all the destruction they had to face for one virus.

He remembered how the governments of all the countries said that they could control the virus, and maybe they were right. But the important thing was to control people and make sure they were not freaking out because of the virus, and that was the difficult task they couldn’t stop.

“Good morning,” the leader greeted him when he reached the East Gate.

Jung YunHo was a great, strong man that had lost all his family except for his daughter. He was the one who had managed to join most of the groups to free the prison so they could live there and start a new life.

“I supposed SeHun told you about the change of plans already,” he said.

“Yes, he told me.” KyungSoo nodded. “But I thought you didn’t want to send more people to search for other groups, not when they can be renegades.”

‘Renegades’ was the name that YeRim, in a wave of inspiration, had given to the ones that were part of Orion, the other big refuge that had been formed in a hospital and that had gained a bad fame because of their motto ‘Kill everyone that can breathe if they are not part of us’. Simple mercenaries that were capable of murder anyone just to have more means for their group.

“They didn’t seem like renegades, that’s why I decided to take the risk,” he replied. “I hope not to be wrong about this.”

The man put some cloth bags into the van trunk and smiling at KyungSoo before he tried to say something more. The sound of the walkie-talkie interrupted him, so he gave the younger man an apologetic look before reaching down for the device and listening to the message from the rescue group.

“YunHo-Oppa, it’s SeulGi, we have found the group. Five persons, two of them are wounded.” Her voice sounded distorted. “They were near to our base, it seems like they came looking for us. They had a little encounter with two renegades.”

“Okay, bring them here,” he commanded. “I will go with KyungSoo, DongHae, YeRim, HyoYeon and HyukJae to the commercial zone that we found the other day. We’ll be back before twelve.”

“Received.”

YunHo restrained the walkie-talkie in his belt and signaled KyungSoo to get into the truck. YeRim and the others arrived shortly after, climbing into the trunk and seating there with the shotguns already loaded and prepared to fire if necessary.

“What are we searching for today?” KyungSoo asked as he fastened the belt.

“Anything is fine,” he replied. “Although building materials is the main thing, we are increasingly more and soon we will have no place to put new refugees. Last night, shortly after your turn ended, a group of twenty people arrived.”

KyungSoo raised both eyebrows, amazed by the information. “Twenty refugees? I don’t remember that we have space for that many people.”

“We don’t, we have started to place the new members of Antares in rooms that were already occupied,” YunHo explained and gazed at him. “We are looking for volunteers if you are interested in helping.”

“I don’t have problems to share my bedroom with anyone that needs it,” he said and rolled his eyes when he saw the victory smile the leader had. “You know I try to help with anything I can. You don’t even have to ask me.”

“Of course.” The conversation died for a couple of minutes. “Did you hear the radio last night?”

“No, why? Something interesting?”

“They have chosen Shim ChangMin as the president of New Seoul,” he explained. “His first action as president was to ask all the people living in the free cities that had formed in the last years to return to the capital, they want to give us food, a house and, if it’s possible, to reunite us with our families.”

KyungSoo laughed at that. “Does he thinks that someone will obey? It was his father the one who turned Seoul into a battlefield in the first place when the people with more economic possibilities were the only ones to receive help from the government.”

“World had always move around money, a mortal epidemy wasn’t going to change that,” the man said with a bitter tone. “I wish we could trust our politicians, but they are always the first ones to lie.” The leader’s fingers rhythmically hit the steering wheel. “Also, I don’t know how other countries are, but we are too divided here. Red ones, Renegades, Imperialists… Too many groups that fight for surviving and that don’t make a difference between enemy and friend at this point.”

“The world had gone mad,” KyungSoo mumbled.

YunHo laughed dryly as he turned in a corner and entered the old commercial zone. They had been there other times, but they always found new things they couldn’t take with the previous times.

“The world went mad when they decided that giving a free pass to that pharmaceutic to experiment with a mortal virus,” YunHo said. “Let’s stop here, I don’t want to risk the van to enter more.”

They walked out of the vehicle, securing their weapons were loaded before splitting into three groups. YeRim and KyungSoo went to the second floor, to a shop they had revised the last time but not completely. They opened drawers, showcases, and cabinets looking for supplies, making sure to be as quiet as possible.

“YunHo rejected the idea of going to Seoul,” she said as KyungSoo tried to open up a door with a lock pick. “I thought that with the new president he would change his mind but he is more stubborn than before.”

“It’s normal, it was our government that left us in the dirt when the virus reached Seoul and people were panicking,” he explained as he turned the lock pick and smiled when he heard a little ‘click’.

“That was seven years ago, we can’t expect ChangMin to be as bad as his father.”

KyungSoo sent YeRim a quick look before they entered the new room; she was still too young to understand, only twenty years old. She had been a little girl when the war exploded and his fathers did everything they could to protect her. Losing their lives was once of them.

“They are dictators in process, YeRim,” he said. “They saw what people can do in desperate times, do you think that after seeing what we are capable of, they would leave us be free? After all the blood we have shed? The people we have lost? ‘Freedom’ is not a known term in New Seoul.”

YeRim didn’t say anything, just frowned and walked to her backpack to put some cleaning supplies she had found in a cabinet. KyungSoo opened up a drawer and took the earrings and necklaces he had found. Maybe in the Black Market of Gangnam someone will give him money for them.

“You can’t know it,” she said after a few more minutes. “You can’t know if they are bad.”

“And you can’t know if they are good.”

The girl snorted and shook his head. KyungSoo didn’t spare her another look and kept searching for more things to take with him. He was opening some cabinets when the walkie-talkie sounded; he took it and pressed the button to make a connection with the others.

“Ey, I received a call from Antares,” YunHo said. “We have to go back, apparently something went wrong.”

“Received.” KyungSoo saved the device, closed his backpack and walked until he found the girl on the last shelves of the shop. “YeRim, let’s go!”

“Okay!”

After explaining to her why they had to return, both of them walked to the principal floor and then to the car. The bad thing about doing those kinds of missions with YunHo is that the leader couldn’t leave the city for too long before a problem came up. The others were already there when they arrived at the van.

“Everyone is ready?” YunHo asked as the others took a sit. He received confirmation hums. “Perfect.”

KyungSoo closed his eyes and rested his head in the window.

* * *

_**January, 2017.**_

“Do you think JongIn could forgive me someday?” he asked BaekHyun the night of the thirteenth. The other man lifted his head and frowned.

“Forgive you what?”

“About the building… that I left him there…” KyungSoo closed his eyes. “That I didn’t try to find him.”

“Then he will have to forgive us all, Soo,” the man replied. “We had to decide before the other groups arrived and kill us,” he said. “They would have done the same.”

KyungSoo gulped and sighed tiredly, but didn’t say anything. Soon it would be a year since what happened in Bucheon’s building and he couldn’t forget it. Every night he returned to that day, a painful memory that hunted him because he knew the moment he walked out of the building he had left part of him behind with JongIn.

“I miss him. I miss them, but when it comes to him…”

“I know, I get it,” BaekHyun commented with a low tone. “Sometimes I can hear JongDae calling for MinSeok-Hyung when he’s sleeping,” he muttered. “I can’t even imagine how hard it was for you two…”

“He was my fiancé, BaekHyun,” KyungSoo said, a pang on his chest. “I left my fiancé behind. I left the person I love the most behind.”

“All of us have lost people in the way, KyungSoo,” BaekHyun replied with a soft tone. “But we have to move on because we are alive and in this moment that is the biggest gift we can wish for.”

KyungSoo turned around in the bed, he accommodated the pillow under his head and closed his eyes for a moment. The memory of the building crumbling down completely a few meters away from him was playing non-stop on his head

“I have feared that one I will wake up and I won’t remember his face,” he whispered. I fear that one day I will try to remember how Kim JongIn was and I won’t even remember how his laugh sounded.”

“That won’t happen, KyungSoo. It’s impossible,” he said. “I promise you it won’t happen.”

“How are you so sure of that?”

BaekHyun sighed and replied with a broken and shaky voice. “Because we never forget the ones we love. The heart never forgets, Soo, even if the head does.”

KyungSoo didn’t say anything, he simply relaxed and tried to remember how JongIn looked. His black hair, tan skin, toned body, dark eyes, and hypnotic smile. Kim JongIn and his low and calming voice. Kim JongIn and his ‘I love you, Hyung’ he muttered every night. Kim JongIn and the part of KyungSoo’s heart died the day he left the man behind.

If BaekHyun heard him cried that night, he didn’t say anything.

* * *

** _September, 2022._ **

KyungSoo was out of his memories and thoughts when the car entered Antares. YunHo drove to the central zone and got out of the car, making a gesture to the man to go with him as the others took the supplies they had found. They walked to B Block, where the hospital was.

“How many people were?” YunHo asked when they saw BaekHyun resting against the door of the clinic.

“Five,” he said and both of them could hear the anxiety in his voice. “Four men and a woman.”

“Who are the ones injured?”

“Two of the guys,” he said. “YiXing-Hyung said that he one of the boys, MinHo I think it was his name, had only a cut on his right arm that will heal with daily cures.”

KyungSoo, BaekHyun, and YunHo walked through the B Block until they reached the stairs, they went downstairs and kept passing the long hallways until they reached the hospital zone.

“And the other one?” YunHo asked.

“His name is ChanYeol,” BaekHyun said. “The others told us that he was thirty-one like JongDae and me, he lost his family because of the virus and was with another group until the renegades kill them. He was the only one who survived and last night he was shot in the leg. He passed out an hour before we arrived.”

“Can he heal?”

“YiXing was not sure, but maybe with rest and antibiotics he could be fine in a few weeks.”

“Good.”

They crossed the double doors to enter the hospital, frowning at the big smell of alcohol and other disinfectants. They walked through the place, BaekHyun leading them until they reached a white room where they could see the new members of Antares.

“There’s something you want to tell us, BaekHyun?” YunHo asked when he saw the man shifting his hands nervously.

“MinSeok is there.”

KyungSoo frowned. “What?”

“MinSeok is there. I almost started crying when I saw him,” he muttered. “JongDae is probably inside already. We couldn’t talk about anything, but he survived the explosion, and he is here now and…”

“And JongIn? Is the other boy JongIn?” KyungSoo asked, anxiety and fear making his voice trembled.

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know that?” he growled.

“MinSeok didn’t say anything and the four boys were quiet and away all the time. He has a big black mask covering his mouth, black and large hair that fell into his eyes making impossible to look at him directly and didn’t talk in the ride. He didn’t answer our questions either.”

YunHo and KyungSoo frowned, the first one was confused and the second one was feeling his hopes shrinking a little when he heard that. The JongIn he knew would have never act like that, and MinSeok saying nothing about his identity didn’t make sense.

“Let’s enter and clear our doubts,” YunHo said.

With his head hanging low, KyungSoo entered the room behind the leader and was fast to hear the shaky and choppy words of two people crying. He lifted his head and looked at how JongDae was embracing MinSeok tightly as they cried in each other arms. They were completely broken after so much time away from the other.

“I still love you, I never stopped loving you,” JongDae said as MinSeok sobbed against his chest.

“I love you too…” he could hear MinSeok mumbled between tears.

KyungSoo’s eyes fell in the boy curled up in one corner, his hands hugging tightly his legs and face pressed against his knees. He walked to him carefully, getting closer until his eyes met the others. He knew instantly who he was; a wave of attraction rushing through his body like the day they met.

“JongIn,” he whispered. KyungSoo was on the verge of tears. “JongIn,” he repeated.

The man blinked in his direction but didn’t reply. With caution, KyungSoo moved to him and lifted a shaky hand to try to touch the covered face of the boy, but JongIn was quick and slapped his hand away.

“JongIn…”

KyungSoo felt his eyes filling with tears and his world stopped as his heartbreak on his chest. He felt everything falling around him when he saw the hate and contempt on JongIn’s eyes. KyungSoo, who had survived to a lot of fights for surviving, felt completely defeated at that moment. And everything turned even worse when JongIn spoked out.

“Don’t touch me,” the man said in a raspy, low voice. He sounded drowned and shaky like it was hard to talk and tears were gathering in his eyes as well. “Don’t you dare to touch me again.”

Everything turned silent.

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo, this is the first chapter. What are your thoughts? Did you like it? Kudos and comments are really appreciated <3  
Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> Lots of love, Ali.


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